Victor Rocha, a former career US diplomat, who had served as the US ambassador to Bolivia has pleaded guilty to working as an agent of Cuba for more than 40 years.
Gatekeepers News reports that the 73-year-old was charged with secretly passing information to the communist-run Cuban government since 1981 while working for the US State Department.
Rocha on Thursday, changed his initial not-guilty plea in a court in Miami.
He is due to be sentenced at a hearing on April 12.
The move brings one of the highest-profile espionage cases between Cuba and the US to an unexpectedly rapid conclusion.
The Cuban spying case that has shocked the US government
According to the Miami Herald, Thursday’s court hearing was supposed to be about how to handle classified documents involved in the case.
However, Rocha, his lawyers, and prosecutors acknowledged that a plea deal had been struck.
When Judge Beth Bloom asked him if he wished to change his plea to guilty, he responded, “Your Honour, I am in agreement.”
The former US Diplomat is charged with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act by acting as a foreign agent, wire fraud and making false statements to obtain a US passport.
The evidence collected by investigators includes covert recordings of Rocha admitting to working for Cuba for decades, praising the late Cuban leader, Fidel Castro as “Commandante”, and calling the United States “the enemy”.
Meanwhile, he and his legal team now appear to have reached a similar conclusion, calculating that a guilty plea was his wisest option.
Following this, Rocha must now accept the US government’s accusation that he spent nearly his entire professional career working for the Cuban Revolution in US outposts in Havana and Buenos Aires while simultaneously rising in the US diplomatic service.
However, there’s been no discussion in court of Rocha’s sentence or whether he accepted a plea bargain in exchange for his cooperation yet.
The CIA’s former Head of Counterintelligence, James Olson, told BBC News last month that the case illustrates how Cuba’s intelligence services outwitted the US government.
The US authorities have released footage of Manuel Rocha covertly recorded by an FBI agent
Olson said, “They owned us. They beat us. That’s one of the reasons I have this personal grudge against the Cuban intelligence service because they have been so successful in operating against us.
“He’s a traitor. He betrayed our country. I think that’s contemptible, and I don’t think he’s going to see the light of day again.”
The US and Cuba have had a fraught relationship since Fidel Castro overthrew a US-backed government over 60 years ago.
